Friday 9/6/24
It was almost as if Fleer cards were trying to be ugly there for a while. The Fleer aesthetic was one of drabness, depressing background colors, and ill-considered photos. Later on in the decade of the 1980s, Donruss ditched the version they were doing of this and became the cool card company. Rated Rookies had something to do with that, and the Jose Canseco rookie card, which was seen as this hot commodity. Upper Deck was an attempt to have cards look better and brighter, with Score then being an attempt to make baseball card photography exciting.
It's a shame that Aaron Judge has been slumping. You want to see him hit 63 home runs and have these historic numbers across the stat line.
Shohei Ohtani will found the 50-50 club, though. He used to get thrown out a bunch on stolen base attempts--leading the league one year--but he almost never does now. In MLB history, very few players have ever even had the potential, I'd say, for a 50-50 years. Willie Mays was one. Alex Rodriguez another. That might be it, though I'll also mention Eric Davis. He was a most tantalizing player, but one held back by injuries. There were times in 1987 when he looked about as good and as complete as anyone you'd ever seen.
Ohtani leads the NL in WAR right now with 7.0. That would put him sixth in the AL behind Judge (9.5), Bobby Witt, Jr. (9.0), Jarren Duran (8.6), Gunnar Henderson (8.0), and Juan Soto (7.5).
There are no good teams in baseball this year. In sports, as in our culture, everyone is becoming like everyone else.
Red Sox: Another loss. 70-70 now. Tanner Houck: Another loss for him. Comes out and serves up four runs in the bottom of the first. Thanks for playing, brother. People are going to look back on this guy and wonder how he was ever an All-Star, especially as the Red Sox had other players on the All-Star team that year and he wasn't picked just because every team needs a representative.
Kenley Jansen now sports a lovely 3.70 ERA after giving up four runs of his own in 1/3 of an inning. Five walks in the eighth for the Sox, with three runs getting walked in. That's embarrassing. Also: Remind me why Alex Cora is a great manager again? What makes him so superb? This team can still finish in last place, which would be the third year in a row. And Rich Hill. The way this guy talks about himself it's like he thinks he's really good. Why did they drag his superannuated ass back? I've seen far more than I need to see of this guy.
But back to Cora: Some people benefit from this kind of "We're all just going to treat that person like they're great" thing and Cora is one of those people. I think his record is poor--his performance record, I mean. He gets the Red Sox job in 2018--his first managerial gig--and wins the World Series. Team was loaded. I thought he was a wreck in the playoffs who didn't get exposed as such because unlikely role players bailed him out. He was making all of these hyper-aggressive, needless moves that could have stopped that team from winning it all.
Then he gets cocky and keeps talking about the title and doesn't have his team ready to go and manages in 2019 like the championship the year before will just guarantee him and his team success.
Then he gets suspended for 2020 for cheating. Seems like a big deal.
Back he comes in 2021, team wins a respectable 92 games, blows chance to advance to World Series in ALCS, but season is scene as this super success because the Red Sox had been bad for three straight years. This, really, was a bad thing for Red Sox fans, looking back on it. Because it's this run that helped cement Cora as the can-do-no-wrong guy. The the-manager-isn't-a-problem guy.
We move to 2022. He finishes last. Then on to 2023. He finishes last. In 2024, his team flirts with the third Wild Card spot in the middle of the summer. Cora then signs a three-year extension and team falls apart. I believe their highest number of games over .500 was eleven. They now sit at 70-70 here on September 6 and are closer to finishing in last place in the division than they are gaining the final Wild Card.
It's coincidence the team unraveled after he signed his deal? Okay. You believe that if you want. I think Cora is a problem. The roster is a bigger problem. Sure. Ownership is the biggest problem. But Cora's level of engagement blows hot and cold, and he's never been a good in-game manager. His ego gets in his way. If Cora was a sixty-year-old white manager, I don't think he'd be praised and have the reputation he does. But he's younger, he's seen as hipper, more with it.
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